Important dates

• The list of poster presentations are published.

• A poster presentation submission deadline: July 31th  -> August 18th -> August 25th (anywhere on earth, no more extension)

• Workshop date: Oct. 6-10 (tentative)

Aim of the workshop

 The emergence of language and communication has been a major theme in artificial life research, beginning with studies on the evolution of communication protocols (Werner and Dyer 1991), naming games (Steels, 1995), and iterated learning (Kirby, 2001), with methodologies that have expanded across multiple fields including robotics, linguistics, cognitive science, evolutionary theory, philosophy, and complex systems sciences.

   In recent years, the rapid advances of large language models have enabled artificial intelligence with sophisticated language processing capabilities, heightening expectations for AGI. However, numerous challenges remain concerning the origins of language—the source of "intelligence"—and its grounding in the real world.

   To address these challenges, research on "Emergent Communication," which approaches from a constructive perspective based on technological progress in deep learning and large language models, has gathered attention. Emergent Communication aims to model the process of language emergence and evolution. It is an interdisciplinary field where various research domains intersect, such as symbol emergence robotics, language evolution, and multi-agent reinforcement learning for communication.

   This workshop aims to provide an interdisciplinary forum where researchers from various fields can gather to share and discuss the latest research findings on symbol emergence, emergence of communication, and language evolution. We hope to return to the foundational principles of artificial life research while integrating cutting-edge technologies. Through this, we seek to explore new research questions and strengthen cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Abstract booklet

• will be provided.

Schedule

• Date: Oct. 6-10th, Kyoto (tentative)

• Time: TBD

• Tentative program

  • Opening: 3 min

  • Plenary talk: 15 min 

  • Poster presentation: 72 min (including 1-min flash talks)

Poster presentation 

• Measuring Alignment in Linguistic Representations via the Metropolis–Hastings Captioning Game 

  • Mikako Ochiai and Tadahiro Taniguchi (Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University)

• Learning prosocial communication among decentralized agents 

  • Naoto Yoshida (Kyoto University), Tadahiro Taniguchi (Kyoto University)

• Generative Emergent Communication in Autonomous Driving using Variational State-Space Models 

  • Nguyen Le Hoang1, Tadahiro Taniguchi (Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University, Research Organization of Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University)

• Emergence of Structurally Discrete Visual Sign Types in Continuous Space through Naming Game

  • Tianwei Fang, Tadahiro Taniguchi, Nguyen Le Hoang (Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University)

• Tools for an epistemic analysis of language evolution research

  • Luc Steels (University of Brussels (VUB))

• Ensuring Game Completeness in Text-Based Interactive Fiction with Large Language Models

  • Raito Nakajima, Ryo Ueda, Yusuke Miyao (University of Tokyo)

• Emergence of Representation on a Bases of Pre-representational Cognition: A Phenomenological Analysis of Chromaesthesia

  • Eiko Matsuda (Keio University) and Tatsuya Daikoku (The University of Tokyo) 

• A Comparative Study of AI-Guided and Teacher-Led Instruction in Developing L2 Learners'Sarcasm Comprehension and Response Competence

  • Mei Yi Lam (Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University SFC)

• A Computational Analysis Method for the Emergence of Communication with Temporally Extended Communication Games 

  • Naoki Inoue and Kei Wakabayashi (University of Tsukuba)

• Investigating the Baldwin Effect in Emergent Collective Communication via Evolutionary Deep Reinforcement Learning

  • Naoto Toya and Kei Wakabayashi (University of Tsukuba)

• Emergent Dynamics in Cultural Evolution: A Constructive LLM Agent-Based Approach

  • Mahiro Kato, Takaya Arita and Reiji Suzuki (Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University)

• How abstract linguistic expressions guide evolution of embodied animats through subjective evaluation based on VLMs

  • Shota Miyazaki, Takaya Arita and Reiji Suzuki (Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University)

• How semantic interactions guide open-ended evolution in evolutionary ecology of words

  • Reiji Suzuki and Takaya Arita (Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University)

• Bootstrapping the Evolution of Communication via Mimicry

  • Dylan Cope (University of Oxford) and Peter McBurney (King’s College London)

Call for poster presentation 

We invite poster presentations related to the topics of the workshop. 

The presenter needs to submit a one-page abstract of the presentation.

The abstracts of the accepted presentation will be compiled into an abstract booklet PDF and made publicly available on the workshop website.

The abstract templete and submission process will be provided soon.

Note: The registration for the main conference (ALIFE 2025) is necessary.

Abstract submission for poster session

• Please prepare a 1-page abstract using the Word template, and send it to reiji@nagoya-u.jp

• The abstracts of the accepted presentations will be compiled into an abstract booklet PDF and made publicly available on the workshop website. 

• At least one author must attend the workshop and present the work in person.

• Note that the presenter must register for the main conference.

• Deadline: July 31th -> August 18th -> August 25th (anywhere on earth, no more extension)

Organizers

• Reiji Suzuki (Nagoya University, Japan)

• Ryo Ueda (University of Tokyo, Japan)

• Tadahiro Taniguchi (Kyoto University, Japan)

Contact

Reiji Suzuki: reij@nagoya-u.jp